Wild Cards
by Prisoner 24601
Summary: Co-authored by Dinah Lance. Frustrated with Shepard, Jack blasts the nearest Cerberus stooge: Joker. But when things get dicey on Omega, Jack's forced to decide if she'll let the pilot get lost in the shuffle or if she's the ace in the hole.
1. Full House

A/N: This fic was co written by my partner in crime, Dinah Lance.

* * *

_**Wild Cards**_

_**Chapter 1 - Full House  
**_

Shepard was wasting time, and Jack couldn't fucking stand it.

Normally Jack wouldn't give two shits that Shepard was screwing around on the surface of some remote planet, but it had been over a week since their last mission. A week since Jack had killed anyone, set something on fire, or seen an explosion.

The quiet was making her bored and twitchy. Worse, ever since she'd found the coordinates of the base she'd been tortured at as a kid, Jack couldn't stop thinking about Pragia. Sprawled out on her cot, Jack stared up at the ceiling as her thoughts and emotions burrowed under her skull like a pack of rabid, screeching varren. Jack wanted to bang her head against the bulkhead just to make it fucking stop, except she knew it wouldn't stop even if she beat herself to a bloody, twitching puddle. It would never stop until she planted a nuke in the middle of that Cerberus base and blew it sky high.

Shepard had said they'd go to Pragia as soon as they could, and like a dumbass, Jack had believed her. It served her right for being stupid enough to ignore all of her instincts and swallow Shepard's bullshit, but knowing it was her fault didn't piss her off any less.

If they couldn't go to Pragia, Jack figured that they should at least be kicking Collector ass, but no. After picking up the quarian on Haestrom, they'd dicked around the Citadel while Shepard played social worker with Thane and his son, and now Shepard was jerking off on a planet that no one had ever heard of before, probably doing some secret job for the Cerberus cheerleader.

She needed a distraction before she went completely batshit insane, but she'd already dug through all of the Cerberus dirt she could get her hands on and her weapons were cleaned and modified as best as she could get them. Usually when she was bored like this, she went and bugged Zaeed. Other than the krogan and Shepard, the merc was the only one on this ship that she could stand. But she'd already listened to him wax poetic about his damned gun until she wanted to fix it just so she could blow a hole in the old man's skull.

Which meant one thing. It was time to find Miranda and tell that stuck-up bitch to get Shepard's ass back on the _Normandy_. And if a fight broke out, then hey, that wouldn't be Jack's fault, now would it?

Jack cracked her knuckles as she rode the elevator up a level, the thought of breaking that smug bitch's perfect nose making her feel warm and fuzzy, but when she got to Miranda's office everything was locked up tight. Jack was about to punch the nearest console and demand to know Miranda's location from that creepy ass AI when she realized one of the people sitting at the nearby mess tables was _Normandy's_ pilot.

Another Cerberus whore, and in this case even more useful than Miranda. If anyone knew how long Shepard was going to fuck around on the surface, it had to be that crippled freak, so Jack detoured into the open space the crew used as a mess hall.

"How many did we lose?" The turian was hunched over the table. Jack avoided the turian most of the time; whatever vigilante bullshit he tried to pull off, asshole was a cop through and through. Acted just like the warden back on Purgatory, so fucking sure that everything he did would save the whole fucking galaxy.

"Twenty crew members, all told." The glass in front of the doctor was empty. Big surprise. The dried-up bitch was a drunk. Not that Jack gave a shit. She wasn't about to let a Cerberus stooge patch her ass up anyway.

"And Pressly," the cripple muttered before taking a swig from a bottle.

Jack scanned the pristine kitchen wondering who the hell Pressly was, what the fuck they were talking about, and if there was some decent food that wasn't made out of those shitty military rations. She swore when she realized that Rupert had everything good locked up tight. Fucker.

The quarian wrung her three-fingered hands. "Shepard said that she wanted to find their ident tags for their families. I offered to help, but she said that it was something that she had to do on her own."

Jack's anger exploded like one of Zaeed's favorite grenades when she realized the planet below was the _Normandy_ crash site. "Fuck! We've been dicking around because Shepard wants to cry about her dead crew?"

The quarian turned her attention to Jack. The only thing Jack could see of the girl's face were those weird white eyes that went wide with shock. "Excuse me? I wasn't talking to you."

Three other sets of eyes glared at her. Jack crossed her arms and glared back. The pilot looked away first. "Mind you own damn business," he said.

Jack went back to looking for food, digging through the one unlocked storage bin that held the foil-wrapped ration bars. She snagged one, hopped up on the counter, and left a nice big bootprint just for Rupert before dangling her legs over the far side. "You're the assholes having a pity party in the middle of the mess hall. Want to talk private? Go somewhere else."

The turian pinned her with his beady bird eyes. "Most people are smart enough to know when they're not wanted."

Jack tore open the foil with her teeth. "I don't give a shit about what you want," she said as she crumpled up the wrapper and tossed it aside. "I don't get it though. They're dead. They won't care that she's collecting their tags. If Shepard wants to do something, she should keep going after the bastards who fucked up her life." She pointed to the crippled Cerberus pilot with the ration bar. "And if I were her, I'd start with you."

"Fuck you, baldy," he snapped. "Nobody asked your opinion."

Jack could smell blood in the air. It made her smirk. A pissing match wasn't as good as fistfight, but with all of the crazy thoughts screaming in her brain, she'd take whatever distraction she could get.

She spoke around a mouthful of food. "It's interesting what you can learn by poking around a few databanks. I read all about the Normandy crash. I bet you thought you were all heroic and shit by staying with the ship, but all you did was get Shepard killed."

He didn't have a snappy comeback for that one. He just stared at her, his face twisted in a sneer of hate. It was a familiar expression; people had been looking at her like that ever since she could remember.

"Shut your mouth," the turian shot at her.

"Come on, Vakarian. You were on Horizon. You saw the look on Shepard's face when that boyfriend of hers told her to fuck off." Not that Jack gave a shit about Shepard's fucked-up love life, but still.

The turian straightened to sit upright. "What I saw was Alenko being an ass. And that's his problem."

"He hates Cerberus, which makes him smarter than the rest of this fucking crew." She turned back to the crippled pilot. "You cost Shepard her life, her man, and her job. I've crashed space stations into moons, but I don't think I've ever caused as much mayhem as you did trying to be the big goddamned hero. Maybe next time you can top yourself by killing her pets and pissing on her grave."

When the quarian rose from her chair, Jack itched to use her biotics to rip that face mask off. She'd bet all of the credits she had that the girl's face underneath was twisted by some seriously tasty rage. "You bosh'tet!"

"What's the matter, cupcake? I'm just speaking the truth. The crippled asshole here even got rewarded for his stupidity. Cerberus gave him a new ship, a pay raise, and a new pair of legs for bending over and being their bitch."

"You think you get to judge me, you tattooed freak?" the pilot snapped. "Look around, psycho. Who do you think owns the ship you're flying on now?"

"Like I had a fucking choice." Jack narrowed her eyes and tilted her head as she studied the Cerberus stooge. "Maybe you didn't either. From what I read you were washed up and grounded. Even the Alliance didn't want your crippled ass anymore."

"Yeah? Well, you can kiss my crippled ass, bitch. I don't have to take this." He pushed himself slowly to his feet and hobbled a few steps away from his chair.

"Jeff..." the doctor began.

"I'll be in the cockpit," the pilot cut her off. Jack smirked in victory as the others watched him limp to the elevator, then turned to glare at Jack again.

After a moment's silent, Vakarian jumped to his feet. He stalked toward her, mandibles flaring, like some giant space bug from a bad vid. "What the hell's the matter with you?"

Jack shrugged, shoved off the countertop, and brushed her hands on her pants. "I'm surrounded by Cerberus lackeys. It makes me cranky." Jack just knew that those assholes were waiting for her to turn her back or drop her guard so they could lock her in another fucking box and play more of their sick games.

"Joker isn't a Cerberus lackey," the quarian said. "He is a good friend and the best pilot I have ever seen. None of us would be standing here if it weren't for him. He deserves to be treated with respect."

"You'd be floating in space around that Collector ship if not for him." Vakarian waved his arms in the turian equivalent of a shrug. "Not that any of us would care."

"So what? I don't owe him shit. He does his job, I do mine. If you expect me to hold hands with any of the Cerberus assholes on this tin can, then you're a fucking idiot." She turned back toward the elevator. Now that the cripple was gone, the conversation was becoming boring.

The quarian stepped in her path, hands on her hips. It was almost cute how cupcake stood her ground. "I don't know why you've decided to bully Joker and I don't care. From now on, you leave him alone."

Jack threw her hands wide. "Or you'll what? Take me out? Work me over? Turn me into Cerberus? Tell on me to Shepard?"

The doctor rose from her chair and clasped her hands in front of her. Her calm, clipped voice cut through the room. "You know, it occurs to me that you've not only angered the pilot of this vessel, but the doctor, a technical specialist that excels at making things explode, and a former C-Sec officer who probably knows dozens of places that have warrants out for your arrest. That doesn't seem very wise of you, young lady, considering how your sad little existence is going to depend on us doing our jobs in the next few months."

Jack snarled, her mood gone sour at the doctor's words. She plowed forward, bumping the quarian in the shoulder as she strode toward the elevator, disappointed that she hadn't knocked cupcake on her ass. "Whatever," she spat. "Fuck all of you. I can take care of myself." Always had, always would.

She rounded the corner, punched the button for the elevator, and barreled past the pair of engineers that emerged when the door slid open. She threw a rude gesture at their startled faces, and then the door closed. When she got back to her hole in the bowels of the ship, Jack threw herself on her bunk, screwed her eyes shut and tried to ignore the howling and whispering in her brain, alone with her thoughts once again.


	2. Stacked Deck

_**Chapter 2 – Stacked Deck**_

Four days later they still hadn't gone to Pragia.

Shepard had some kind of bullshit excuse, something to do with how Samara had a problem that needed taking care of right away, but Jack didn't buy it. She knew Shepard was just fucking with her. Jack figured the crippled pilot had gone crying to his commander and now Shepard was making her wait as some kind of punishment.

Fuck her. Jack didn't need Shepard to blow that base up. Once they were done kicking Collector ass, Jack would steal a nuke, ditch the Normandy, and go blow up that goddamned base herself.

At least Omega had a decent nightclub she could hang at while she waited for Shepard to finish saving puppies or whatever the hell she was doing with that asari. The minute she walked into Afterlife, Jack relaxed. The loud, pounding music, the smell of sweaty bodies and acrid smoke, the flashing red lights all helped drown the screeching inside her skull. She snagged a bottle from the bartender and found herself a dark corner of the balcony where she could see the whole bar in case anyone decided to mess with her. Jack had just downed her first shot on the way to getting shitfaced when the main door slid open.

The last person she expected to gimp into a place like Afterlife was the crippled pilot, but there he was, and Jack wondered how the hell he'd gotten past that elcor bouncer.

The pilot limped slowly to the bar, giving wide berth to the clumps of drunken dancers. One turian nearly stumbled into him, and the cripple had to shuffle out of the way quickly, scowling and spouting what looked like obscenities. The turian shot him a rude gesture, then went back to dancing.

The turian bartender watched the exchange with amusement and then looked about ready to burst out laughing at the pilot's delicate maneuvering to lever himself up into a bar stool. Joker gave him a human version of the rude gesture he'd gotten on the dance floor, then pointed at a bottle. The bartender just shrugged, still chuckling, and pulled it down to set before him.

Jack shook her head and poured herself another shot. The cripple had no business coming into a place like this on his own. Someone might kick his ass just on general principle. Jack figured it would serve him right.

She took another shot and settled into watching the crowd again. For a while it was boring. No fights, just the usual desperate drunks and brainless club kids. But when the doors slid open, revealing a group of armed batarians that were obviously trouble, Jack could smell the shit that was about to hit the fan.

Jack stood and leaned against the railing, squinting down at the group. They looked familiar, but then all batarians looked the same. Still, Jack couldn't shake the feeling that she'd seen them before. For a second, she thought they might be there for her until they settled around one of the tables below and focused their attention on the crippled pilot's back. She snarled and ran her hands over her shaved scalp as she swore; the loud, thumping music drowned out her string of curses.

Letting the little shit get his bones broken by pissed-off drunks was one thing, but these assholes wouldn't just kick the crap out of him and walk. For a few seconds she was tempted just to leave the little Cerberus bitch to the batarians, but Jack knew if Shepard found out that she'd let her pilot get snatched or killed, there'd be hell to pay.

What the hell. She was itching for a fight anyway.

Jack vaulted over the side of the railing, her combat boots landing with a loud thump on the grated metal landing. She walked down the rest of the stairs and up to the bar. The stools next to the pilot had filled up, so Jack grabbed the collar of the salarian sitting next to him and yanked him off the seat.

The salarian protested, until she spun him around so he could see her face. She jerked her thumb toward the door and snarled, "Get lost."

As the salarian muttered to himself and stumbled off, Jack hopped up on the now vacant bar stool, swiveling to face the batarians. She leaned back against the bar, her elbows resting on the smooth surface, her hand inches from the shotgun holstered to her back, and said, "Hey."

Joker glanced at her, then sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. "Jesus. This figures. What the hell do you want?"

The batarians studied her with all of their creepy ass eyes. She could by the way they started to twitch that they recognized her. They started talking into a comm link, probably calling for reinforcements.

"You should be happy to see me," she said as she nodded toward the batarians. "Because I'm about to save your crippled ass."

"You know what's funny?" the pilot asked. "I don't remember asking for your help."

"Know what's even funnier? You thinking you can take on that group of batarian mercs by yourself. Do you even have a fucking weapon on you?"

Joker glanced over his shoulder at the batarians, then took another drink. "Yeah, I'm sure they're here for me. I'd be such a moneymaker on the slave markets."

"Who says they're going to make you a slave?" she said. "Shepard's pissed off a lot of batarians. Some might be looking for payback by taking out the gimpiest member of her crew."

He glared at her again for a minute, then pulled out his ship's comm. He tapped a few keys, banged it against the side of the bar, then tapped a few more keys. "Thing's jammed." He glanced back at the batarians again, then laid a credit chit on the bar while shaking his head. "This? This right here? This is why I never leave the ship." He gripped the bar with both hands and slid slowly to place his feet on the floor. He winced a little as he put his full weight on his creaky Cerberus-issue legs.

The second the pilot moved, a pair of batarians started toward them while the rest hung back at their table. Jack just lounged against the bar and waited.

They had their pistols holstered and their shields off when they walked up. Stupid fucks.

Sharp teeth flashed under the red lights. "We want the pilot, not you."

Jack cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. "Interesting. What do I get if I let you have him?"

"You selfish fucking bitch," the pilot hissed under his breath. He started to edge away, but one of the batarians stepped to the side to trap him against the bar.

Knuckles tightened around pistol grips, as the batarians finally reached for their weapons. "You get to live."

Jack dismissed that bullshit with a wave of her free hand. "The only way you get to walk out of here with the cripple is if you give me a fast ship, a nuke, and a half a million creds because that's what I'm going to need if I double-cross Shepard." From the dented and shitty condition of their armor, she doubted they had that kind of cash, but hey, you never knew.

"You don't understand, little human. We have all of the exits covered and reinforcements on the way. Leave now, or get carried out later in a body bag."

She raised an eyebrow. "Are you fucking serious? I can tear you assholes apart."

From the way the second batarian kept shooting twitchy glances at her, Jack figured he must have at least heard of her. He cleared his throat. "Ten thousand credits."

Jack threw her head back and laughed. "That's all you got? Fuck you, man. That won't even buy me a decent weapon."

"It's better than dying here with him. Do the smart thing and walk, girl."

Jack shrugged and said, "Whatever."

She kicked upward, the toe of her combat boot connecting with the underside of the first batarian's jaw as she pulled out her shotgun and blew the second batarian's unshielded face off. A bloody mist hung in the air as she pumped a second round into the batarian clutching his jaw and howling in pain.

"Like you assholes could kill me. I'll kill you all," she snarled.

Hopping down off the bar stool, she hit the button that activated her shields before turning toward the pilot and barking over the screams of panicked drunks , "Back door. Move."

"You think I'm going to listen to you after you tried to sell me out?" he snapped. But he was already hobbling toward the back exit.

Dozens of stampeding, screaming patrons started running like idiots toward the front door, blocking the batarians' line of fire. Jack backed up, eyes on the batarians who were starting to fire into the crowd, and shouted, "You're going to listen to me, or I swear I'll knock you out and drag your ass back to Shepard. I don't care if I have to break every fucking bone in your body to do it."

People started to drop, hit by the batarians' blaster shots. Afterlife's bouncers joined the fight, some shooting at the batarian mercs and some firing at Jack. Jack sent a biotic shockwave at the group of batarians, sending everyone in its path--bouncers, asari dancers, idiots who were dumb enough to get caught in the crossfire, and batarian mercs--flying into the air. Jack followed it up with a few more rounds of her shotgun, as the batarians started picking themselves off the floor.

When she turned around she realized that the crippled pilot was just starting down the back stairs. "Goddammit!" she snarled.

One of Joker's hands slid along the wall as he limped slowly down the stairs. The other was wrapped white-knuckled around the grip of a standard-issue Alliance pistol. He glared at her over his shoulder, and the club's lights caught the little beads of sweat just under his cap. "Goddammit is right! You think you could tone down the collateral damage, psycho?"

Jack wondered what the fuck he was planning to do with that little pea shooter. Probably plug her in the back of the head when she wasn't looking.

"That'd be a lot easier if you'd hurry up and get through the fucking door, cripple."

She fired off more rounds, reloaded, and then fired some more. One at the bartender who looked like he was reaching for a weapon under the bar and another in the general direction of the batarians. The bartender ducked for cover while the batarians returned fire. With almost no cover, her shields started to crackle under the shots. She knew they wouldn't last for long, but she was not about to die saving a Cerberus bitch. If he didn't get his ass through that door in the next ten seconds, she was going to toss him through.

He'd just about reached the door when it slid back. A surprised-looking batarian merc gaped at them for a second, then raised his rifle. The pilot fired his pistol and plugged him in the gut. At that short range, it ripped right through the merc's shields and slammed into his armor. The batarian stumbled back with a grunt, then lunged forward to grab Joker's arm. There was a loud crack, and the pilot choked out a short cry. The merc froze, startled. Joker raised his pistol again, this time nailing the guy right between all four eyes. The merc dropped, and the pilot staggered away, dropping his weapon to clutch at his wrist.

Jack's brows lifted in surprise. Cripple was pretty good with the wimpy gun. Even better, he wasn't crying about his broken bone. She couldn't fucking stand crybabies.

She fired off a few more rounds before backing through the threshold. The doors slid shut in front of her and her fingers flew over the interface as she tapped in a jamming code she'd learned from a guy on her cellblock in Purgatory, half surprised when it worked and the interface turned red. It almost made her feel bad about shanking him in the exercise yard.

Once she knew that the batarians wouldn't be able to come up behind them, she did a sweep of the smaller room off the back of the night club. Other than the dead batarian, it was empty. Jack guessed everyone had cleared out once they'd heard the screams and shots. All that was left were empty tables and a really fucking long staircase.

She scooped Joker's gun off the floor and looked down at the hundred or so steps that led to the lower level of the nightclub. There was no cover, no elevator for the gimp to ride down, and no other way out. No way for Joker's crippled ass to make it down before the batarians and their reinforcements started barreling up those stairs at them.

She put her hands on her hips and glared down the corridor. "This is gonna suck."

"Yeah, that's a real shame," Joker panted around clenched teeth. The beads of sweat were now droplets trickling down his temples. "We were having so much fun up 'til now."

Jack clutched her head and closed her eyes as she paced, trying to think about what she was supposed to do next. Strategy was Shepard's thing. So was protecting the gimpy and mostly helpless. Jack just barreled ahead and hit things as hard and as fast as she could, but she couldn't do that now, not if she was going to keep the cripple in one piece.

Rage made her eyes snap open. A frustrated snarl crawled out of her belly and echoed through the room as she used her biotics to smash the nearest thing, one of the big heavy tables, into the far wall.

Jack stilled. Fucking thing was tough. Not a dent on its metal surface.

"What the hell?" the pilot yelled. He'd backed up against the wall and was edging toward the staircase. "Can you save the redecorating for when we're not about to be shot?"

"It helps me think. Clears my head." She jerked her thumb away from the staircase. "You might want to gimp over there unless you want to become a smear on the wall."

She waited for him to lurch mostly out of the way before she started pushing the tables, all three of them, into a rough pile at the top of the stairs. It took her almost a minute of slamming them with her biotics before she got them where she wanted them.

She debated keeping the pea shooter before handing the pistol back to the gimpy pilot, remembering at the last second not to shove the gun into his hand. The sounds of angry shouts and combat boots echoed up the hall.

Jack crouched behind the makeshift barrier. "Stay down and don't be a fucking hero."

"Shit." The pilot lowered himself to the floor, pistol in his good hand, the other held close to his body. "This is a really shitty idea. You know that, right?"

"Yup." She pumped the shells into her shotgun. It was a sound that always made her feel warm and fuzzy. "Got a better one, genius? Spit it out already."

"If we get out of this, I am never leaving the ship again," the pilot muttered.

Jack peered over the top of the tables at the group of batarians running up the stairs at them. She held her fire knowing that the range of her shotgun would only reach halfway down the steps.

"I give us about a fifty-fifty shot." She shrugged. "Shepard sends us into suicidal shit like this about twice a day when she's not off playing social worker."

Just as the batarians reached shotgun range, they stopped and spread out along the edges of the stairwell. They had better armor than the ones in the bar. Better weapons too. A few turians ran up the stairs behind them, then split up to stand on either side of the stairs, weapons raised. They had the whole fucking stairwell covered.

When they'd all taken position, one of the turians looked back down the stairwell and nodded. A figure appeared down below and began a slow ascent up the stairs, bootheels ringing on the metal. It was the asari Shepard always talked to when they came to this bar.

"All right, breathing corpses," Aria yelled out as she climbed. "Before my boys here aerate your torsos, I have two questions. Who the fuck are you, and what the _fuck_ did you do to my bar?"

Jack's trigger finger itched as she stared down the length of her shotgun and considered blowing Aria's head clean off her shoulders. Odds were that the asari was in on this job. Not much happened in Aria's club without her knowledge or approval, so Jack figured the bitch deserved to get blown away. Of course that would unleash all the heavy ordnance pointed in their direction and probably get them both killed, but then she and the cripple were probably fucked anyway.

"Like you don't fucking know," Jack spat. "Finish the job quick, bitch, because when Shepard finds out that you've killed her pilot, she's going to tear this shithole apart piece by fucking piece."

"I'm not responsible for every shit people take in my place. I am responsible for cleaning it up." The asari sneered at her. "Which my people would have done. But you had to jump in and get creative. I don't normally like creative. Creative usually gets my bootheel down your throat."

"Yeah, right. Clean us up in a fucking body bag." Jack didn't lower her gun, still not convinced that Aria wasn't going to fill them full of holes or turn them over to the batarians. "If I'd waited for you to get off your blue ass, the cripple here would have been dead or snatched."

"Hey, how about we stop talking about _the cripple _like he's not standing right here?" the pilot griped.

The asari continued to ignore him as she peered at Jack. "You were here with Shepard before. Which makes you very, very lucky."

Jack narrowed her eyes. "How's that? You going to call off your goon squad?"

"No," Aria said. "I'm going to tell them to escort you out of my club. And then I'm going to tell them to shoot you if you ever come back." Her eyes flicked to Joker. "Either of you."

"Oh, great," the pilot muttered. "Now I'm included."

Jack lowered her shotgun a fraction. "What about those batarians? They going to be right outside waiting to jump us the minute we walk out that door?"

Aria's hands went to her hips. "No. They've been removed. And if you don't want to go out the way they did, move your ass."

The asari only stopped glaring at them long enough to nod at one of the turians. He signaled the other mercs and they formed up around Jack and the pilot, unjammed the door, then hustled them back into the main bar area. The floor was littered with glass, overturned tables, and thick pools of blood, which disgruntled-looking humans were mopping up on their hands and knees. Before they'd gotten halfway to the door, Joker was panting and muttering swears under his breath as he struggled to keep up with the mercs' pace.

The mercs led them out into the main Omega thoroughfare and dumped them without another word. The head turian made a big show of pointing them out to the elcor bouncer. The pilot scowled at him and flashed a rude gesture, then hobbled over to an overturned crate and sat down heavily, cradling his cracked wrist.

She looked down at the cripple. "Damn. How can you stand being in such a gimpy body?"

He glanced up at her, eyebrows raised in surprise, then turned away and shook his head. "You are un-fucking-believable. You get your people skills in prison?"

Jack shrugged and leaned against one of the crates. "I get my people skills from Cerberus. Turns out if you torture a little girl enough, she turns into a crazy bitch." As she spoke, she scanned the crowd for more batarians. Respect for Shepard or not, Jack didn't trust Aria not to leave some of those bastards alive just to teach them some kind of fucking lesson.

"I'm fucking serious. How do you do it? It's got to suck major balls."

When he looked up again, the crap lighting on Omega and his stupid hat made it hard to see his eyes, but disdain twisted his mouth. "How do I do it? I fucking moved on and grew up. We don't all get off on wallowing in the shit life gave us like you do."

She crossed her arms under her breasts. "Well, aren't you a big fucking inspiration? Life didn't hand me this sack of shit, Cerberus did. I'm going to find every last one of the motherfuckers that did this to me and make them pay. I'm going to plant a nuke at that shithole base they kept me in and blow it sky high. And then I'll move on, by stepping over their dead corpses." She pointed toward the corridor that led to the Normandy. "Now move your crippled ass before some more of those batarians come looking for you."

"You sure you don't want another chance to sell me to them?" he bitched. But then he pushed himself to his feet and started to hobble back toward the ship.

"I wasn't going to let them take you." She shrugged. "At least not for long, anyway. Shepard would have my guts for garters if I let them kill you, and besides, she and I have a deal. Shepard got me the info about Cerberus, I kill shit for her. I just wanted to know if they had the creds and ordnance so I could roll them for it."

"Great. How 'bout you warn me the next time you use me as live bait?" At the pace he was shuffling along, they were both going to drop of old age before they reached the ship.

She crossed her arms and glared at him. "How 'bout you shut the fuck up? I saved your gimpy ass and all you do is bitch."

"Hey, I'm grateful you know Shepard can kick your ass." The pilot dodged awkwardly before a salarian hurrying the other way slammed into his broken arm. "That's more brains than I gave you credit for," he muttered.

"Like you're some kind of genius. You're the dumbass that gimped into a bar you had no fucking business being in. If those batarians hadn't gone after you someone else would have, just on general principle. I can't believe that Shepard gave you shore leave on a rock like Omega."

"Shepard's not my mom," he snapped. "She knows I can handle myself."

"The way your fan club talks, you're one hot shit pilot. Seems to me that Shepard would be pissed off if you got fucked up in a bar fight before we jump through that relay. But whatever. It's your ass, not mine."

He didn't say anything, didn't even glare at her from under that stupid hat. So he knew she was right. They reached the docking bay after a few minutes of silence, and the pilot punched the airlock release. Well, as much of a punch as his weakass bones would allow. The silence stretched through the decon chamber and then he was limping off to the medbay without even a backward glance.

"Hey! You're welcome, you crippled fuck!" she yelled at his back as she watched him gimp away. The Cerberus lackeys sitting at the consoles along the corridor turned to stare at her. With a sneer and a shrug she stormed back through the airlock in search of another drink and more distraction.


	3. Called Bluff

_**Chapter 3 – Called Bluff**_

In the end, she ended up back where she'd started, lying in her bunk, staring at the metal pipes that crossed the ceiling, trying to make the crazy thoughts that snaked through her brain shut the fuck up. It was the staccato of combat boots on the metal stairs above that punched through the snarling whispers in her head. It had to be Shepard. No one else came down to this part of the ship, which was how she liked it.

Jack pushed herself up and dropped her legs over the side of her cot. She rested her elbows on her knees and muttered, "Shit."

The ringing of boots on stairs changed to the dull clack of boots on deck. Shepard appeared from behind the stairwell dressed in what passed for Cerberus casual. At least it wasn't tight enough to show her ass crack like the cheerleader's body condom. Shepard's hair was pulled back in the usual style, but it looked wet, like she'd just gotten out of the shower. She leaned against the bulkhead, one eyebrow slightly raised.

"Have an interesting night?"

Jack figured Shepard would hear about what happened, but not this damn fast. The pilot must have gone crying as soon as Shepard got back. Jack leaned back and crossed her arms. "Yup. Killed some batarians. Saved your pilot. Got kicked out of Afterlife. Good times."

"I bet. Aria gave me another lecture." Shepard shook her head, but her lips quirked upward slightly. "Apparently you broke the first rule of Omega."

Jack smirked. "If Aria talked less shit and paid more attention to what was going down in her club, she wouldn't have been caught with her panties down."

Shepard glanced up, like she could see through two levels of deck plating. "She said the batarians were after Joker?"

"Went right for him. Didn't want me. Tried to get me to leave." She frowned. "I think some of them recognized me though, because a couple looked like they were going to pee their pants when I showed up."

Shepard shrugged. "Maybe we've run into them before. I've pissed off a lot of batarians." Her eyes dropped from the ceiling to meet Jack's gaze again. "Thanks for stepping in."

It was about time she got some credit. "You're fucking welcome, but that ungrateful cripple can go fuck himself. I pulled his nuts out of the fire and all he did was bitch the whole time."

Shepard pushed away from the bulkhead. She stepped forward, coming to a stop a few steps from Jack's cot, and her arms came up to fold over her chest. "I also heard what happened in the mess hall."

Jack jerked her chin up, bracing for the shitstorm she figured was four days overdue. "Yeah? You're fucking welcome for that too."

Shepard's eyes narrowed slightly; the rest of her expression didn't change. Her voice didn't change either. "You think I should be grateful?" It sounded like a real question.

Goddamn Shepard and her goddamn questions. Jack just wished she'd throw a punch and be done with it. "I think I said out loud what everyone on this ship thinks, but doesn't have the stones to say to his face."

"You think everyone blames him for my death." It wasn't a question, just a statement in that same even tone.

"Cripple got you killed. Even you have to be pissed off about that."

"Joker was doing his job. And I was doing mine. You want to blame anyone for my death, blame the Collectors." Shepard shifted her weight, just barely leaning forward. It was the stance she got on the battlefield right before she ran out of cover. "And I don't care how many Cerberus files you've read, don't presume to think you know anything about the original Normandy or her crew. That includes Joker, Staff Commander Alenko, and me."

Jack shook her head. "It's un-fucking-believable how many of you defend that mouthy little asshole."

One of Shepard's eyebrows twitched up, like she was almost about to fucking _laugh_. "I got a few similar comments when I brought you on board."

"Yeah?" Jack shrugged. "Fuck 'em. I don't give a shit about what anyone on this ship thinks, Shepard. And if you're sticking up for me, don't bother. Because unlike that little punkass you call a pilot, I can take care of myself."

"I don't doubt it. And I wasn't defending Joker. I was warning you that I don't like people making assumptions about my personal life."

Jack rolled her eyes, pulled her legs up onto the bunk, and leaned against the bulkhead. "All right, whatever."

Shepard turned and headed back for the staircase. "We'll reach Pragia in four hours," she said over her shoulder. "Be ready."

For a few seconds all of the crazy noise in Jack's brain went silent, but when the frenzied thoughts started again the howls were even louder than before.

"Shit." Jack clutched her shaved scalp, her broken nails biting into her skin. "We've got a big fucking bomb, right?"

"Biggest one I can spare." Shepard paused, one foot on the bottom step. "So be sure about this. Because this is the big kind of boom that doesn't leave anything behind."

Jack drew her knees up to her chest, nodded, and swallowed the whiny bullshit doubts creeping up her throat. "Yeah, I'm sure."

At least she figured she would be sure by the time they got there. But right now her belly twisted itself in knots at the thought of setting foot on that planet, as it occurred to her for the first time that this might be a really bad idea. Jack bit her lip to keep herself from saying something stupid and weak while she listened to Shepard climb the metal stairs.

She lay back down and thought about what had happened on Omega. The pilot was an asshole and a gimp; there was no doubt about that. Still, the defiant little cripple had gone into a rough bar and managed to defend himself by blowing a batarian merc away. And if that ungrateful punk could do that, then she could walk into an abandoned base and light off a nuke, right?

She closed her eyes and imagined the shockwave burning through the surrounding jungle. How the blast would light up the sky, scour that hellhole off the planet's surface, erase her past forever, and give one last kick in the balls to the Cerberus assholes who had stolen her life.

The howls quieted to whispers again, and Jack smiled.

Fuck yeah.


End file.
